Plum Fruit Leathers Tutorial

I have been wanting to make fruit leathers for a while now so when a friend had a glut of plumbs I thought it was the perfect time to give it a go.

I read a lot of recipes and tried a few out but this is what worked best for me ..... no recipe needed as such.

***Wwahooo I hear you cry***

So, grab some plumbs (that sounds wrong, sorry :-/), no particular amount needed but I used about 12  (if you use more you can just put more trays in the oven), cut them in half and de-stone them.  I find the easiest way to do this is cutting them round the middle and twisting them.

Cover a baking tray with foil and place the plumb halves on top.  Pop them in the oven at about 170 degC for 20 mins to get rid of some of the moisture and to make the skin easier the blend.  Remove them from the oven and turn it down to 100 degC.

Let them cool and pop them in a blender or food processor until they turn into a puree.  Add honey to taste, I added a couple of desert spoons full of our own honey (more about that another day, so excited about that here!).

Now grab a baking tray, pop some baking paper on the top (glossy side up) and pour some of the puree in the center of it.  Not too much though, just enough so that you can move it to cover the tray so you can't see the baking paper underneath, I used the back of a spoon to do this.  The thinner you can make it the quicker it will dehydrate.  If you make it too thick it takes hours and hours ....... and hours and hours ...... and hours to dehydrate!

Now pop it in the oven and leave it for at least 3 - 4 hours, check every 30 mins after this time.  If it still feels liquidy/squidgy (can't think of another word to best describe it) then leave it for another 30 mins.   When it feels a little tacky to touch but not squidgy take it out of the oven and leave it too cool.

Now use a knife or pizza cutter and score lines into the 'leather'.  It should peel off from the outside edges and create strips of fruit leather ..... WWWAAHOOO!

The children adore these and they have used up some fab plumbs - bonus !  I am going to try Raspberries next ...... wish me luck ! x